Not actively pulling chest up in WW seated postures?

Christine does make this statement at about 20 minutes into the hips DVD. I had never heard it before. I must say that I always try to pull the chest up when sitting, because my lumbar curve collapses if I don't. I have never experienced the pain she refers to, and for me, keeping the chest up and opened out so that my shoulders aren't rolled forward is probably my biggest posture problem ongoing. So......I will continue to lift my chest when sitting. Aussie Soul Sis is the hips guru here, maybe she will have some insights. - Surviving

PS - she also makes the point here about the shoulder girdle already being very strong from keeping the chest strongly lifted while standing. That might be the case for her, after well over a decade of living in the posture; but it isn't necessarily so for the rest of us.

I used to pull up a lot when sitting but was pulling forward as well. Then my cele got worse and now it bothers me a bit when sitting so I have relaxed my chest a bit (still got lumber curve though) and that helps. My hips material arrives soon so that bit will be interesting to me. Could you be over doing it when sitting Sierra as I do know you work really hard - that's not to say I have things right :o) I do notice the ladies on the videos always seemed to have a straighter back to me and I was trying to work my lumber curve and probably overdoing it - more sway back.

Here is Christine's post about lifting the tailbone.
https://www.wholewoman.com/forum/comment/49450#comment-49450

WW posture does lift the taillbone naturally, so I think this was just another way to explain it that might help turn on a lightbulb. - Surviving

Dear all,
If you watch the introduction, two goals of the chair exercises is to strengthen the shoulder girdle and make the spine more flexible.
It also helps me tremendously with neck, arm and torso flexibility & strength, defines the waist and strengthens the torso, so that I can carry the posture better - imagine the shoulders/ upper body as a strong, stable coat - hanger and the rest of the body is carried more effortlessly from it.

When standing in WWP the chest is already strongly lifted up, so if we SIT from that posture, we don't need to lift the chest anymore as it can place stress on the thoracic spine.

We also strengthen the shoulder girdle every time we are on our feet.

I have also found that it pays to really listen to what Christine says over and over really helping to ingrain and remember the benefits and also "hear " them properly.
At times I hear more about what she is saying, that I haven't taken in before.

Have fun,
Aussie Soul Sister

Practice standing in the posture in front of a chair and without collapsing the upper body, sit down, placing your bottom to the back of the seat.
The chest remains in the same position, still strongly pulled up.
Your seated position is at a 90% angle, so you are not leaning forward or backward.
Hope this helps,
Aussie Soul Sister

It's that 90% bit Aussie (I like that one being a Kiwi) that got me. When I first went 90% it felt like I was going backwards and like my abs were being used (they were relaxed and fine). This was where the posture got me most stumped as I was leaning forwards too much including when walking thinking about my organs being forward. This was a light bulb moment for me a few weeks ago and I got there with the pony tail pulling up bit but I also realised how straight my spine was and then understood the wide lumber curve as going up my back rather than the sway back lumber curve I had going on. I so can't write these posts like Sierra with all the proper body words but this is just how things felt to me. Safely Held I wonder if you have this issue or you felt like I did re this as we have seemed to follow the same path with this (you have just been much quicker than me to pick it up).

and one that has gotten me to do a lot of thinking about my sitting posture. Aussie, going from standing to sitting in front of a mirror is a great idea- hoping to do that today because I think it would be extremely helpful to see exactly what my upper body does as I seat myself.

But this 90' angle has me a bit confused. Here's why I ask. I enjoy playing games at a card table with friends from time to time. In my chair, I'll vary my position from rear end back, sitting up straight with chest pulled up (? now I wonder if I shouldn't be doing that) and also sometimes I'll sit cross legged in the chair, also pulled up. But it is inevitable that I'll need to lean forward to grab a card. I never worried about this because it puts me in a less than 90' angle which I always thought was ok.

Don't worry ladies- as we all know it's virtually impossible to never get into a less than ideal posture from time to time and quite frankly, my time with my friends is so valuable to me that even if this ends up constituting not great WW posture, I'm not going to stop. The laughter and camaraderie is too important to my overall health and wellbeing. It'll even out in the end I'm sure.

I was also taken aback by the not pulling up your chest in a seated position...can't wait to be able to order that hips DVD! :) -gr8fl

Sorry if this has caused confusion. I’m not sure I can explain it better than Soul Sis, but I will try.

When we are standing, our legs are underneath us and therefore our tailbone (pelvis) has its full range of motion to rotate forward (tailbone up).

When we sit on a firm surface in WW posture our legs are out in front, which creates greater tension on the pelvis. This is all well and good. But when we try to pull up the chest, because there is more tension from our legs on the lumbar curvature, it becomes stressful to actively lift the ribcage.

How I describe it to women is that we really pull up into the posture every time we’re on our feet. In this way we build the musculature in the chest and shoulder girdle to hold this beautiful form. Then, when we sit we are already strongly pulled up. Many times through a long sit I actively pull up my chest, pull my shoulders down and tuck my chin. But I don’t stress my upper spine by continuously lifting my chest. I just pull into it (maybe over and over again) and then just sit, keeping the upper body posture and my belly relaxed over my thighs.

Hope this helps!

:-) Christine

that has really helped as the sitting is my weakest part of the posture I think. I spend too much time lying down when I really want to sit and write and I end up with neck ache!! I will try to follow your description very closely as the walking posture works so well . I also might find my small back support which will stop me forgetting to sit upright. I wish I lived in USA as the conference sounds so interesting! Thanks for everything you have passed on to us ,we r all so lucky that your journey has taught us so much and that Lanny has made this excellent web site. :)

Hi, all good comments. I don't mean don't lean forward by the way it's just that I was doing that all of the time and so my breathing probably wasn't in the WW cycle and it was a lot of effort when it seems it was not necessary and putting pressure on my pelvis as Christine mentioned. A lot of that was in the chair when I was on the laptop. Maybe we can all enjoy WW posture when we are sitting more by relaxing a little then regularly pulling up as Christine says. I do find it is easier for me to sit in the floor positions now that I am in WW posture but not going nuts on trying to pull up. Enjoy your card games gr8fl.

Hi and many thanks to you Christine - I was expecting that you may step in.

In the hips DVD sitting back in the chair probably gives more support for the exercises.

Our torsos usually have no strength in the beginning to hold our upper bodies up, as I never sat in a chair without a back if I could help it and still sat in a C shape or leaned back, so I have had to work consistently to be able to support my upper body in WWP.

However, since starting WWP, I have always used that position of sitting fully on a chair unless I couldn't put my feet on the ground flat - if I couldn't avoid that chair.

This is and still is to help me hold the posture, & if I need to use a support when tired, & especially in the beginning when developing my lumbar curve.
My dear Mum used to say how straight my back was! Not any more!

In the beginning like when sitting in class, or anywhere else for that matter, I used a rolled up scarf/jacket to make myself sit upright, always as a reminder, to train myself - I was the only one in the class that sat up straight.
Now I can sit more in the posture, without support, more often, though I will say that I have to remind and adjust often.
If I catch myself slouching it is the first indicator of low mood, or fatigue.
Yes it is a dilemma when leaning forward to do stuff & I do it from the hips, trying but not always succeeding to keep alignment with the upper back and neck.

I have observed pictures, / video of people in third world countries, who have no furniture and a woman was squatting on the ground, ( she could have had a tiny stool/ support under her bottom but I couldn't tell she was so close to the ground ) and she even prepared food ( peeling vegetables), for her cooking pot on a little fire, without collapsing her upper posture and used her eyes to look down.

The men used bamboo poles to aerate the ground with perfect alignment of their upper body, bending slightly from their hips.
Oh what we could learn from them and how different out furnishings & posture and natural strength would be!

I hold magazines, books and anything that I read like a person holding their song sheet in a choir. Yesterday I read a book using a table artist's easel. Or I read lying down.
The upper body exercises have helped with my upper body strength to enable me do do this more easily.

I am trying to do more floor sitting in general and also as we have acquired a lounge, for which we are grateful as it looks nicer but it is way too soft.
My hip turnout is a slow process but I work on it when my body tells me it can handle it.

Whatever position I find myself in, I try to remember to always lift the back of the head or correct it as soon as I can.

The 90% angle - if you look in a mirror and bend your knees while standing until your thighs are parallel to the ground, as if you are actually a chair - where your hips, and your upper body join -that junction is the 90% angle when you are in that shape.

Imagine a chair with a straight seat and straight back - the L shape of the chair is 90% where the seat meets the back, so when we sit on it that is our body angle.

I hope this helps,
Aussie Soul Sister

Sierra and SH, the longer you do this work, the less you will have to analyze, and the more your body will tell you what to do. It is more intuitive than you realize, because all of us used to carry ourselves this way as children. There is memory of this, somewhere inside you.

For example, when I first came across Christine's statement in Hips about not actively lifting the chest while sitting, I said to myself, that won't work for me, because I slump and my shoulders roll forward if I'm not actively lifting my chest. My shoulder girdle is not as strong as Christine's and probably never will be. Now that she has given us an explanation of the anatomy of sitting versus standing, it makes sense, and even she lifts her chest periodically while sitting. I think it's pretty clear that we are all able to gauge the degree of chest-lifting that we need to do any given time. So relax and just listen to your body. You guys make things SO complex. - Surviving

Safely Held,
Treat this journey as a learning process and be kind to yourself.
Teaching ourselves how to learn and developing creativity in the process is what is so wonderful about this work.
I have had & have challenges along the way and sometimes they seem big - however I am learning to observe, ask Q, study, and make adjustments.
Some of the things I have adapted have come to me yrs after starting this work and now I am careful not to say to myself - "well I should have got that sooner"...
And I still have adapting/learning to do.
Like when meditating, I have to steer myself back from thoughts continually - finally I have found a book that says that is normal & OK - I knew before about observing thoughts but it is continuous practice to retrain the mind and it can be done more easily over time - we just have to show up and do... & I do struggle with that... but writing this today has clarified it more....

I read something the other day about someone who was asked how they kept on track with their "successful" particular vocation / purpose in life and he said he made it daily practice to remind himself.

Hope this helps,
Aussie Soul Sister

PS - thankyou for your kind words - our posts co - coincided. All the best.

I also sense that you are looking for forum people to explain things that are discussed at length throughout Christine's work. Wide-radius curve for example.....she uses that term all the time. Maybe you need a little quiet corner to study this work on your own for awhile. - Surviving

SafelyHeld you are not broken and will have wonderful intuition that you use everyday with your kids and baby. How many kids do you have again? While it is true that we all had this posture when we were little you will know from watching your kids that they copy us in our movements from early on so you, like me would have been copying your mother and deviating away from our evolutionary ways. The truth of the posture is still in us but it may be coming from our ancestors and the ways long before us.

You know I am still learning and am probably must slower than you as I have been doing this longer and our insights on our posture seem very similar, however, I wish I could pass over my complete confidence in my ability to learn, to persist, to tweak things and mostly to trust that I will handle what unfolds (eventually). Sounds like you are being called to follow this path. You will have some very 'dark nights' but if you persist then self love follows and from that confidence blooms.

Anyone who has studied Christine's work understands that we were all born with a straight spine and developed lumbar curvature and foot arches as we began to stand up on two legs. This is in all of us, we do not have to go back to our ancestors to find it. We started learning to suck-and-tuck in gym class, or in dance class, or from our mom nagging us to stand that way.

I know that this forum is a great blessing, but it can also be something of a crutch. I can say this because I consider myself a great success story, and I did nothing for my entire first year except read the book, absorb it, and do what it said to do. Then I started slowly acquiring dvds, each of which I have viewed in their entirety countless times. I'm not any smarter than anyone else. And though I do not have a bunch of kids to raise right now, I do have a full-time job and an elderly mother I care for when I'm not working. I'm hardly ever at home.

And it isn't just about you guys. I have every confidence that you will reach some peace with this work eventually. As a moderator I often consider what some of these conversations will look like to a scared newbie trying to decide whether to try WW, or call the PT like her doctor told her to. I have actually found myself getting angry at how complicated some of these posts (positive as they may be) make this work appear to be.

So every now and then, I have to speak up in a way that some may not appreciate. - Surviving

I think that the above reference to 90% may actually be referring to 90 degree (as in angle).

If I am wrong, please correct me. However, perhaps what is causing confusion here is terminology. :-)

S60's comments got me to thinking. I think it is easy to over-complicate and stress over fine details of WW because, while WW is (to me at least) an obvious and simple answer to POP, in execution it is not so simple.

The idea that the pelvic contents need to be protected from the intra-abdominal forces that would force them down and out the pelvic outlet is the WW concept rang true to me right from the start. It is what convinced me that WW was the way forward. Every other proposed solution to POP just did not seem like an actual viable solution - for example it is just not possible to live all day where you have to think about contracting a muscle (like the TA) continually. Or contract your pelvic floor continually ... etc. I see WW as a structural (postural) solution - my goal is to make sure that when doing activities that exert intra-abdominal pressure on my pelvic organs, I have my body in a position so that these forces DO NOT push the organs out my vagina but instead they are pushed down onto the bony floor of the pelvis. I try to NOT do activities where I can't prevent this (eg I will never do another crunch type situp if you paid me to :-).

That being said, it is not always easy to get one's body into the position that directs these pressures properly. And that becomes very much an individual journey for each of us. Every body has different problems that make being in the WW posture difficult. For some, it may be that really tight hips and hamstrings are what is limiting the WW posture. If that was me, then I would spend my efforts on stretching out those legs and hips. For myself, my difficulties are do to quite a bad kyphosis, which I was concerned about long before POP. Christine's posture, of lifting the chest, shoulders down and broad, crown of head to ceiling, was the first time that I started to have success correcting it. Everyone else had me doing "shoulders back" which actually made my neck worse ... argh! I have spent YEARS now slowly straighten out my cervical and thoracic spine - stretching out shortened ligaments and muscles in my neck and shoulders. In the meantime I do all the WW tricks to encourage my pelvic organs to be forward (nauli, firebreathe, jiggle) and maintain the best WW posture that I can.

Like S60, I no longer stress about my POP. I know that no matter what activities I do, I am no longer pushing my organs out my vagina. WW has shown me how to not do this. And in the meantime I keep doing WW exercises and stretches to improve my bodies ability to BE in WW posture. Once I really understood the anatomical structure that Christine is aiming for with WW it became so much easier. At first, just try and think of the big picture instead of all the tiny little tweaks. The tiny little tweaks can come once you have the general idea of WW more ingrained and habitual.

Just my perspective on a 4+ year WW journey.

Sierra, everyone learns better with visuals. Christine gives us a book full of drawings and photographs, a website and blog full of the drawings, photographs and video clips, a whole slew of DVDs and streaming video, and a YouTube channel. Use them all! - Surviving

Here, here I see your point S60 but we do tend to have one on one conversations on here and that would be hard for someone new. My 2 year old does copy me though I see her change as I do this WW work. You're a great moderator as you keep this forum tracking down a mid line where it should be but if a comment of mine helps SH then all good (but I can be out there so will rein that in). Yes I think its hard for us all to fit the WW learning into our bus lives at times and I don't overthink it too much but have found the forum really good lately and helpful to me.

Sierra, I've been thinking about this 3D thing. I don't think I've ever had a clear understanding of where the pelvic organs are located, relative to each other. The 2D images don't explain that for me, either. However, that has never hindered me in doing the WW work; I don't think it's necessary. Just think of holding the pelvic contents forward in the belly. The best visuals for me in that respect, are the pix of the toddlers and little girls, the pregnant/non-pregnant comparison, and the idea of being like a 4-legged animal from the hips down. You don't need to have a picture in your mind's eye of where each organ is. I too would need some kind of a 3D representation of that, which I don't have. You can learn to hold the organs forward without needing to "see" where each one is. - Surviving

You don't need to be a scientist to learn whole woman. I read enough to get the basic idea of where things go and then just started to do the work, watching carefully and listening to the words spoken by Christine over and over again, until my mind and then my body started to get it.
If I had tried to understand every little detail in that book, I would have gone insane. And I did take college courses in the different sciences, incuding anatomy and physiology. I just wanted to get to it all ready, so I did, just by following the practical information in the book and DVDs.

I think the problem is that so many women come here thinking they can get this fixed in the matter of weeks, and find that the body isn't going to cooperate that quickly. And, when Surviving or I tell them that it took us almost a year, which isn't always the case, but a good average for us old gals, they think we must be daft because we didn't "get it" sooner.
Time and patience is what gets the work done, not rocket science.
If that were the case, thousands of women would have given up on this work a long time ago.

All I can say to that is welcome to my world! These are symptoms I have experienced before and during the beginning of this work. Just think, you are forcing your organs, including your intestines and rectum into a different configuration than what they were sooo used to before this.
You will find as you go along, each thing, each little issue will resolve itself, as you continue to dedicate yourself to the very basics of this work.
And, honestly Sierra, even with all your background and current physical abilities, this will take the time it is due. You won't know when that is until you start feeling it, bit by bit.
That is all each if us can really do. That is the only control we have over this: patience and time.

Sierra and SafelyHeld, I also have, on and off, the same gas and rectal swelling symptoms. It first happened for me around the same age as you, Sierra, late 40's. Now it appears once and again, usually in conjunction with times when I notice a recurrence of night sweats, etc. I attribute it partly to POP but I think that a lot of it is hormonal for me. The start of perimenopause was really rough for me and coincided with my noticing my POP. I think I am almost through the transition to menopause now (no period for many months, although haven't gone the magical one-year length yet). My bowel symptoms have also eased off but they do still reoccur, like I said usually when I also feel hot flashy and night sweaty. I think my hormones are still fluctuating but not wildly like at the start of perimenopause.

I seem to get a lot of pelvic inflammation when my hormones are wacky and this inflammation makes me feel my POP more, and make BMs and gas passing more difficult because everything is swollen. So not that this information is overly helpful in dealing with it :-) but it can be one explanation for it.

On thing that works for me, I lay down on my left side with my knees at a 90 degree angle to my torso, I can often get out a lot of the gas that is stuck. It only takes a couple minutes of laying there.

And, I don't think Christine meant to make her work so overly complicated that it would take, what was the comment? Eight of you to figure something out? Just think what a newbie would think of that statement. They would be running for the hills!

I also don't think she created this forum to be the personal daily blog for those of you who use it as such. That really isn't fair to the rest of us, and especially to the new people coming here just looking for basic information so they can get started with this work.
Since we are giving our opinions here.

I am curious, are moderators actually getting feedback that folks new to the work are having a tough time learning via this forum? Is the recent judgment mostly that in-depth conversations make for extra work for moderators?

When I signed up for the forum I believe I was strongly encouraged not to contact people privately. Has this changed? As a relative newbie, I benefit loads from the detail that people go into and might have actually defaulted to a doctor's office without it. Please trust Newbies to take responsibility for themselves.

We are all women, thriving via our connections and maybe moderators feel that things are unbalanced on the forum. I request that moderators take responsibility for their own needs and speak from that place instead of judging posters. I'm more than happy to take into account both your and my needs when I use this forum.

Snapcracklepop

Here’s what I have to say, then will get off my soapbox.

I’ve been reading this forum for 5 years, moderating for 3, and I have never seen anyone make this work sound as difficult and complicated as SH and Sierra. But I don’t deny that some of the discussions can be interesting and helpful to many.

Moderators don’t have “needs” (Snap’s term) but they do have to make sure things stay balanced and free of spam and bad information and misleading information, and to make sure everyone gets a good response of some kind (even the tough ones). Some of the recent conversations do border on the misleading, in the sense that it truly does not take 8 people to translate Christine’s statement about how to sit! That’s an example of the larger message here, that the work is too complex to be done alone. Most of us HAVE done it alone. Some things “take a village” but prolapse management is a very individual journey, and what it really takes is patience and reasonable expectations. Some of these discussions do require us to keep emphasizing that. And we will. - Surviving

Snapcracklepop, the forum has never been anything but completely anonymous, for as long as I have been here, almost 5 years. There has never been any personal information available for any members to see, with respect to other members. I can't imagine it ever being any other way. - Surviving

PS: If you check the tracking screens you will see that Snap and SH joined the forum at exactly the same time. SH, do you recall seeing the message that Snap is referring to?

Sierra thank you so much for posting above about having trouble getting gas out and "I can feel the gas and bowel movement approach the anus and disappear in there" as you wrote at (3) above in your post. You have put into words what I could not explain properly as it i find this sensation so hard to describe as it is odd. Do you think or know if that sensation really means there is a bowel movement there that is disappearing somewhere or could it just be gas or hemmerhoids isthe cause. I think I have internal hemmerhoids, but I'm confused also if prolapse is the cause. The inability to get gas out so frustrating and embarrassing and I havebeen wondering for such a long time what is causing it, ibs, hemmies, or prolapse so I am asking your opinion on this too because I often wonder if that is my real "cue" to empty my bowel and I am missing it as I do not think I ever get a proper call to empty as I just go and sit in Lopo on the toilet every morning even if I don't have an urge to go. Thank you again for posting, you post is certainly very helpful to me and anyone else who has theses annoying sensations.

Sierra and others I have more gas and the other noises inside since prolapse started and not regular BM's. It seems to go with the territory and is helped by WW work but like AG or S60 said I know I can't go back to normal so am learning to go with it. It's still hard when new though especially the constipation part. I don't have hemmoroids (amazingly) but have had the odd fissure if things are not regular or soft and it feels like pressure sometimes, particularly in the shower.

A few weeks back I fully accepted I could not fully heal this prolapse and since then I have felt a lot better in my head and live in posture, do some exercises but have basically got on with life again. It's been good. The things I really worry about are the gas as I get it sometimes but thankfully not yet in public and an urge to pee at times that is frustrating. Thanks to the detailed posts on this I can go with it and know it may come and go but will be helped by this work.

Obviously I post a fair bit too and although I do enjoy the detail sometimes as it shows the vulnerability and hard work of others and just shows how others tackle this and is like a snapshot into others lives that is so rare in this world (the anonymous bit makes it possible). I think it would be a good question to have new people post their thoughts though.

My posts need to be shorter too :o)

Sometimes moderators have to step in, and A&L, here is a good example. Not long ago, you suggested to a brand new member, a young PP mom, that she should follow Sierra's posts because Sierra seemed to be getting fast results. Though well-meaning, this was a really bad suggestion....for anyone, and especially for someone newly prolapsed who just had a baby. Sierra is extremely fit and maybe someone like her can "overdo" at the beginning without consequences. Most others cannot. And the real problem with this message was to imply that FAST results were even the goal. Quite the opposite!

So I will try to step on toes a little more gently, but I do have to keep the greater good in mind at all times. And for what it's worth (everyone), there isn't much help moderating this forum like there was in the early days of WW. - Surviving

Everyone,

What I am remembering is not a message on the forum, but the guidelines when I created an account to post here. My take-away from that experience was what I was referring to. If I were to read those words at sign up again, my take-away might be different, no doubt. I'm in a much different place with my pop these days and that might have had something to do with my interpretation at that time. Also for me anonymity is both something that helps me feel safe here on the forum, but not so safe if I was to venture outside of it. That's where I'm coming from.

Surviving, all human beings have needs (moderators too :-) ) and my understanding is when we don't stay in touch with them we have a tendency to try and make our needs somebody else's' problem. We end up not saying what we're needing or wanting or what we value, but instead focus on what's wrong with someone else.

My request is that when moderators want something, such as to clarify what truly reflects WW or to keep perception of this work in line with marketability, they do so directly and without making the poster the issue. I admit, much of the time, this is accomplished beautifully and thank you and the other moderators for that. However it seems like when frustration sets in, subtle snark happens and in my opinion that is not good for WW. And until WW has become the golden standard of care for prolapse, it can't afford the negativity in my opinion. I value this way of dealing with prolapse that highly and speak up when I feel the need.

Snapcracklepop

I believe this is the screen that Snap is talking about:

"1) When choosing a screen name, we strongly recommend that you do not use your real name. If you use your real name and someone googles your name, your posts on the forum and all your intimate details of will be found. It's best to use a made-up name. The system will tell you if someone has already chosen that name.

2) While your email address is not visible to other members on the forum, if someone uses the forum system to send you an email and you respond, that person now has your email address. In the past, some forum members have made unethical use of this feature to recruit members to other websites for their own personal interests. We work hard to block members who engage in these activities, but we cannot guarantee prevention. Be very careful about responding to emails sent from other forum members.

Thanks and again, welcome to Whole Woman."

[There may have been at some time a system for contacting members without use of e-mail addresses. This would be well before my time.]